A Name That Stuck

'The Velcro company has some news for us: they don't want us to call velcro, well, velcro anymore... What do they want you to call velcro now? "Hook and loop."'

Velcro
Says hell no,
Please don't use their name.

Too bad
So sad
I'll use it just the same.

Funny Page Coincidence

Today it was babysitting.

Everyday I read the Chicago Tribune funny pages - that is, 2 full pages of cartoon strips. And I am amazed by how often there is a strange coincidence of cartoon topics. Today the word "babysit" came up in 2 different cartoons.

Having noted that, I looked for other odd similarities, and I noticed that "dog" came up in a whole bunch of comic strips - from Dilbert to Blondie to Peanuts... and about 3 more. But maybe that's just the prevalence of dogs in our culture. I'm not inclined to be struck much by all those dogs. But the two references to babysitting surprised me.

I don't think there's a cartoonist conspiracy
So I think this is mostly me.

Tonight

Show is going well.
This audience is swell.

Naturalism

Heard in real life, about real furniture:
Q: "Is that table stable?"
A: "It's strong as a bong."

Baffled

How did genuflection
Take on a protest direction?
To the Catholic in me
It's a mystery.

Bradley House

Visited this really spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright house in Kankakee, Illinois. The house is on a big lot which is on the Kankakee River.

Then we took an electric boat tour of a nice stretch of the river.

Right upon the Kankakee,
Things were looking Wright to me.

In A Hole

I will probably have a claustrophobic nightmare after reading this:

"IU student survives 3 days locked in cave after group forgets him, forced to lick moisture from cave wall"

Spelunker
had to hunker
in the cave
till he was saved
after his club
realized their flub.

That IU as in Indiana University. Is there any chance this is a hoax? The student's name is Lukas Cavar, which seems a little too perfect.

"Somehow" he got separated from his group. "Somehow" they forgot him. He was "rescued" by the cave club - not by authorities.

But big establishment media are reporting the story as true!
So what's a mere blogger to do?
I will report it, too.

New Trix, Old Trix

General Mills is caving in:

"Kids and adults alike expressed their distaste after Trix decided to start using fruit and vegetables concentrates and spice extracts, like turmeric and annatto—instead of Red 40 and Yellow 6 food dyes—to color their cereal."

So, the company is going back to its original vibrant hues, the way Trix were meant to be!

Kids found natural color
Unacceptably duller.

September Warmer Than August

It's not quite Indian Summer yet,
Because it's not quite Fall,
But if the forecast is correct,
It's coming after all.

He Don't Get No Respect

What does Kim think about this Rocket Man thing?

Did he expect respect
From the guy we chose to elect?
I guess that plan is wrecked.

Sounds

The bugs are chirping in the night
While overhead a plane in flight
Generates a distant roar.
It flies away, is heard no more.
A siren howls and is gone.
But the chirping carries on.

How The Marathon Went Today

Today's marathon adventure: well, it was warm. Started at about 70 F and ended up somewhere in the 80s. At the water stations, I would drink a cup of Gatorade cup and pour a cup of water on my head. I'm sure I look a bit comical when I do that, but it feels so good.

Otherwise, the amazingly good thing, was that my legs never cramped. I know I moaned in prior years about my quad-cramping issues. I decided to take a less lackadaisical approach to training this year, with particular emphasis on my quads. So I bicycled more - that hits the quads in particular. I did the "international distance" triathlon that involves the full 25 mile bike ride. And I kept doing treadmill sprints, even while doing distance training. Oh, and I did squats with dumbbells, approximately weekly. And I switched to different shoes. So either some element in there, or maybe all of them combined, somehow prevented the cramping.

Due to the lack of cramping, this "training marathon" actually had a better time than last year's "main marathon". Well, in 3 weeks we'll find out how I do on my main marathon for the year, the Chicago Marathon. It's a flatter course. I hope the weather will be cooler! We'll see if 3 weeks is enough time to recover. I think I took it kind of easy today.

You know,
As marathons go.

Training Marathon

Tomorrow I'm doing a training marathon. By which I mean, I was already signed up for the Chicago Marathon, which is in three weeks. And in my distance training, I've already run 20 miles. Which means that this weekend I should be doing a 22 or 23 mile run, in theory, I think.

So I signed up for the Fox Valley marathon, which also has a 20-miles-only option, specifically designed for people training for a later autumn marathon. But, what the heck, I want 23 miles, not 20, for my training, right? I can always walk the 3 extra miles.

So, I plan to cover twenty-six miles
Tomorrow.
Will I be all smiles?
Or will I be trudging in sorrow?

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

"When you see flies sitting on the windowsill rubbing their legs together, they are cleaning themselves. Flies rely on their compound eyes, antennae and the bristles on their bodies and legs to sense the world around them. They have to keep these sense organs clean so they can fly with precision to find food and mates and avoid predators."

How clean they are -
Our friends the flies!
Some biased folks
Think otherwise.

But just observe
The scrubbing they do
Before they alight
On a pile of poo!

37% Unable

Disheartening news about the residents of this country:

"According to Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center released Tuesday, 37 percent could not name any of the five rights protected by First Amendment, and just about half (48 percent) could name freedom of speech."

This poll
Hurt my soul,
So banning it is my goal.

Maybe They Should Have Given Him Play Money

"Two workers at Wicker Park's Beadniks chased a 52-year-old man who used a toy gun to rob the boutique of a few hundred dollars until one of the employees tackled the man, according to the victims and police."

Robber
Clobbered.

Zzz

I feel like one big sleepy head.
But will I trundle off to bed?
Or maybe walk the dog instead?

I think in fact I have to roll.
I owe that dog a healthy stroll.
And then a snooze will be my goal.

Dictionary Entry Deletion Request

I saw someone use the word, but it's long past time to jettison
"Netizen".

Needs Debugging

Here in the States, we're worried about Irma hitting Florida. But in Japan, they have other worries:

A deadly tick got away Monday after being brought to a news conference held by the Miyazaki Prefectural Government to warn of a tick-borne disease, prompting the governor to apologize the next day.

Tick with sickness
Still shows quickness.

Faux Emily

Because I could not stop my Thought -
I let it "dash" headlong -
Not using commas - as one ought -
When sculpting Word to Song.

I dumped the contents of my brain
Upon the Ground for all
To contemplate with puzzled pain
In God's great Study Hall.

Irksome Inconsistency

Lyrics from a song by Bruce Springsteen, The River:

"Then I got Mary pregnant
And man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday
I got a union card and a wedding coat.
We went down to the courthouse
And the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle
No flowers, no wedding dress."

...So why on earth did HE get a wedding coat, but SHE didn't get a wedding dress? It doesn't seem fair. This has been bugging me for years.

I must admit the lyrics
Tend to get me depressed,
But this is an injustice
That needs to be redressed.

Irma

When I was driving to the airport in Fort Lauderdale yesterday, I could see there were lines at gas stations along the way. I have a friend who lives outside of Naples, out in the sticks, and he says the stations are now running out of gas. And this is for a storm that may not hit Florida at all, and not for a few days yet.

Well, at least there has been plenty of warning.

I hope it's all a false alarm,
And Florida feels no harm.

Convolutions

Uber driver introduced me to not one, but two
New conspiracy theories. Well, not really new,
But new to me. Or maybe not. 
Maybe I'd heard them before and merely forgot.
You may think this sounds a little dense,
But I like to forget what doesn't make any sense.

Irma Threatens

Here in Florida, people buying supplies
In case Irma hits this week.
But I plan to flee to the friendly skies
Before any weather turns bleak.

Swim Report

I had a nice long swim today in Naples, Florida, in calm Gulf waters. It was raining, a little, while I swam.

Compared to Lake Michigan, where I swam last week, the water was so warm, and so salty.

Also, this time, I wasn't in a race
And so I leisurely set my own pace.

Rainbows in the Everglades

Search for pot of gold

Never gets old. 

Should I Do The Triple?

When I was attending the mandatory course talk for the Chicago Triathlon, the speaker asked for a show of hands of those who had already done the Chicago Triathlon 10 times. I raised my hand.

No one doubted me. Let's face it, I look old enough!

But I wondered whether I actually was sure of that number. So I went back to my race log and counted. Yep, well over 10. And, as I thought, I had raced all 3 of the distances: International, Sprint, and Supersprint. Also, from my notes, I raced a couple of times where the course was shortened. I had forgotten, but I remember that one year the swim conditions were terrible, and they shortened the swim course drastically.

Anyway, they now have an event called the Triple Challenge, which involves doing all 3 distances in one weekend. I have to admit, I'm tempted. It's actually less distance than a half-Ironman. Well, to be technical, the swim is longer, but the other pieces are shorter. And... it's broken up into 3 piece over 2 days. So you can kind of catch your breath between the races.

The real reason I'm attracted to it is that you are in the very first batch of people to start at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. No waiting around! I waited around till 8 a.m., old person that I am, because they wanted to let the fast young people go first. But just by signing up for the Triple, I would get into the first wave or so for the International. They have to do that, so that you can be finished with the International in time to join the last wave or so of the Sprint race.

Hopefully I will talk myself out of this.
It would be a strange way of pursuing my bliss.

Like Auntie Fa?

People are uncertain how antifa should be pronounced.
I'm worried if I say it wrong I'll end up getting trounced.

Not News

I find That overly slanted news
Is boring. It makes me snooze.

Fiery Art

'Someone set fire to the large "REAL FAKE" sculpture that sits near Chicago's Trump Tower on Friday afternoon, forcing firefighters to come out and wash it down.'

From past reports, this sculpture wasn't created with Trump in mind, but it may well have been placed with Trump in mind.

Even when art
Fails to inspire,
Please do not
Set it on fire.

Of course, political art vandalism is becoming a thing in the USA. Mostly people are tearing them down or writing messages on them. But in Chicago, fire seems to be spreading. This is from last week:

"Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) on Thursday accused President Donald Trump of emboldening vandals to set fire to a bust of Abraham Lincoln that has stood as a symbol of freedom in West Englewood for nearly a century."

With anonymous vandals, it's actually hard to be sure of motivations. There have been plenty of "real fake" hate crimes in recent years, although those seem more common at colleges.

Arson on art
Is a local trend.
I'm worried about
Where it might end.

Mrs. O'Leary
Had a bad cow.
But our fire department
Is better now.

Wish List for Sunday

For the Chicago Triathlon,
It would be great
If they could paint lines underwater
To help me swim straight.

The Overcrowded Museum

I've seen people, all northerners I think, proposing that all the statues of Civil War generals be put in a museum. I think they imagine that all these works are artistically significant, and that there's a big variety of statues. But I rather fear there are a lot of statues of just a few people: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis. With here and there some generalized "confederate soldier" statues. We've got a confederate soldier statue here in Chicago, at a mass grave of confederate soldiers who died in the big POW camp here in Chicago, Camp Douglas, which is sometimes called the north's Andersonville. Prison conditions, by most accounts, were frequently deadly.

They lie beneath the Illinois loam.
These men who didn't go marching home.

Oh My Ears

Free speech is at its best
When I'm the one doing the talking.
But it's an unpleasant test
When my opponents are squawking.

Cool Event

Some kind people let me borrow
Their special specs
For solar effects
So my eyes will still work tomorrow.

Toeing the Line

Cut a hole in my shoes
To make room for my toes.
No more black toenail blues?
Well, we'll see how it goes.

Here's how it looks:


I was actually following internet advice on this. You see, I really like this new pair of Hoka shoes, and they seem to be great for distance running. But...

Well, 2 weeks ago I ran 16 miles, in these expensive Hoka shoes, and felt unusually good, except for my a few of my toes, which felt unusually bad. They were bruised under the nail. Now you might think that the right thing to do is to just buy bigger shoes. But these shoes were sized correctly in most respects.

So, yesterday, I made this radical modification, and ran for 20 miles, and it went really well, and my toenails seem fine. Really, it's was like running in cushioned open-toed sandals.

I thought of one more benefit - yes -
Now my shoes weigh even less.

Safety First

If everyone in the country tried
To see the eclipse, would we tip to one side?
As for me,
I'm going to watch it streaming on TV.

Solar Lunacy

The moon has a lot of nerve,
Proposing to block the sun.
It really ought to swerve
And leave the eclipse undone.

In Fact They May Find It Annoying

I have found that a lot of white people enjoy talking about their racial guilt trips, but that African Americans rarely find much of value in these travelogues.

No matter what you heard
In your class on sociology
People aren't sitting around
Waiting for your apology.

Trying to Understand

There was violence on both sides. True.

There was only deadly violence on one side, from one person.

Who was marching on that "Unite the Right" side? Were there decent people on that side? Trump apparently said there were. I mean, I'm sure there are people who would like to preserve the statue of Lee for various reasons which are not, in fact, racist. Were there a lot of such people at the rally? Or were they avoiding the rally because it looked to be led by a bunch of neo-Nazi pro-Confederacy types? I can't tell, and it doesn't seem like any reporters are working the angle of exactly who was at this mess.

There's a group that is described as alt-right or far right, called Proud Boys. I want to quote from their website:

'I hope they all enjoyed the little “street performance” with their KKK pals. THANK GOD THE PROUD BOYS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT.' (Lots of NSFW swear words at the link.)

If you're thinking of marching with Nazis,
I really suggest you don't.
You may believe it will work out well,
But history says it won't.

Dogged Determination

How to lick the last bit out?
Just stick in your furry snout!

Feathers vs. Fur

I'm listening to an owl, just after midnight. It's a barred owl, judging by its call. I hear my yellow lab barking back at it. She finds the hooting disturbing, I'm not sure why.

The hooting from the owl
Incites my dog to howl.
Oh, you silly pup,
It's time to shut up!

Sword of Damocles

I saw where David Brooks, the NY Times columnist, was calling for the CEO of Google to resign.

I do find this turn amusing.
I suppose he will be refusing.

Someday

Susan Rice, late of the former administration, writes in the NY Times:

"First, though we can never legitimize North Korea as a nuclear power, we know it is highly unlikely to relinquish its sizable arsenal because Mr. Kim deems the weapons essential to his regime’s survival."

So, we won't legitimize, but we expect North Korea to remain a nuclear power. We will accept, but not approve. I suppose that matters a little, but I wish it mattered more.

A lot of us imagine the current world order proceeding more or less as it is now. But I do wonder what would happen if North Korea dropped even one nuclear bomb on an American city. It could change a lot of things very quickly. I think it would make our reaction to 9/11 look like a minor eruption of force and fury. I don't know what would happen. I don't imagine anyone really does.

I wish the missile defense systems
Worked better than they do.
Maybe then I wouldn't be sharing
These worrisome thoughts with you

Cumulus

Up there in the sky -
What is all that stuff?
Well, to my eye,
It's a mountain of fluff.

Rebranding

There was a story in the news today that a certain chain had a plan to shorten its name.

The company plans to go nuts
And drop the alliterative "donuts"
To rebrand just as Dunkin'?
Man, I call that flunkin'!

Formican Melody

What music does an ant hum?
I hope he drones an anthem!
And if he won't, just plant him
Beneath the spiky Xanthium.

Drawback

One thing about autumn marathons is a bummer:
You have to start training in the summer.
Maybe it's me, but I'd rather not
Run run run when it's hot hot hot.

Unpretty Situation

Wacky local story:

"Escort wasn’t the ‘brains’ behind spending of $5.8 million with exec’s credit card, lawyer says"

They blew an awful lot of money that wasn't theirs to blow. Now it looks like they might be trying to blame each other. But I can't see pinning either as a mastermind, under the circumstances.

Who was the 'brains' of this spending spree?
They both seem sort of short-sighted to me.

Rumors

There are a rumors that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is considering an entry into politics.

Billionaire considers second job.
Pay is so-so. Hope he's not a snob!

Smoke

I was driving home mid-day Sunday, and I encountered a big white cloud of smoke the length of my city block. I stopped twice to make sure I could see through it safely while driving. It smelled a bit acrid, like burning rubber or something. I thought it must be from a malfunctioning vehicle that had driven ahead of me. But I never saw what vehicle that might have been.

A little while later, a fire truck came down my block, and proceeded to drive around the area a bit. I think someone had made a 911 call about the smoke. But the firefighters couldn't seem to find the source.

Where's there's smoke,
Fire is expected.
But this time
It couldn't be detected.

Puzzled

I've puzzled over agonized progressives who proclaim their need to re-understand the world they live in. It seems sincere, despite the fact that all that happened was they lost a close election between two unpopular candidates.

But their belief that they are on the side of history did take a hit. The mystical embrace of the forward march of history is a common progressive belief. It's why they call themselves progressives - because they have allied with the winning side which is the inevitable future. All this goes back at least to Marx.

When history takes an unexpected turn
It must mean you have something new to learn.

To Unfold

The power to unfold much like a flower,
Unpeeling and revealing what's within,
Is not attained by all, for many cower
Afraid that what they hold untold is sin.

Dunkirk

I haven't seen the movie yet. But I'm thinking about the actual event, after reading this review.

It was spectacularly successfully retreat,
Which set the Nazis up for defeat.

Return to Manteno

The way I so often win first -
Both best for my group and the worst!
When there's no one your age to compete,
The trick is just to complete.



The swim for this triathlon takes place in Lake Manteno, starting from the Manteno Sportmen's Club, in beautiful Manteno, Illinois. Years ago, in the late 90's, I did a triathlon here a couple of times, although the course layout was different - and longer.

That old triathlon seemed to get discontinued, but... At some point, they seem to have restarted as a triathlon venue - without my knowledge somehow! Anyway, it's only about 40 minutes from my house, and it's a convenient, friendly triathlon. So I'll be back. Maybe next time there will be someone else in my age group.

If there's someone else my age in the race,
I may have to settle for second place.

Contest

Who is the richest dude in tech?
It's Gates and Bezos, neck and neck!
I'll ask the winner to write me a check.

Ancestry Again

Hanging around on comparative family tree sites, I have a lot of visible overlap with a few people who arrived in the 1700s in Virginia from the British Isles. It's fun to read their names and dates and ponder the vast chain of ancestry.

Nowadays the family tree fans are trying to verify the branches with DNA data. Most official family trees, over time, will bury some family secrets concerning true parentage. This seems to be less often the case than many skeptics had expected, as it turns out.

In my case, for example, people with whom I share a family tree branch are also popping up as DNA relatives on 23andMe.

But some people pop as distant DNA relative - third to fifth cousins - and neither of us have ANY idea of how that came to be.

Allegedly, I have a Native American ancestor, on my mother's side apparently. What tribe, I don't know.

I'm hoping that its Pottawatamie,
Because that word sounds cool to me.

Geography

For what it's worth
I'm told the earth
Is not really flat
Like a big welcome mat.
But in the Midwest
It's what I'd've guessed.

Bizarre Sentence Of The Day

"I mean, look, I don’t mean to be rude, but most of the reason I went gay is so I didn’t have to deal with nutty broads." It's from an old "Milo" article on Breitbart about the future of "sexbots".

I hate to try to think about a statement like this. But, he's got me doing it.

"I don't mean to be rude"... actually, of course, it's hard to imagine how a careful writer can refer to "nutty broads" without "meaning to be rude". There might be good reasons to be rude, but, let's face it, "nutty broads" is a tilt to the rude side of the force. It's a little ruder than "crazy females" and a lot ruder than "emotionally disturbed women".

Next... he "went gay". Well, from where? Maybe from "bisexual" or from some custom category like: "I think of myself as straight, and I find women attractive, but I also find men attractive".

As an aside, I have the impression that women who date gay guys often do experience emotional distress.

Finally I ask
What man will want to bask
In the admiring glance
Of a robot without pants?

Ancestral Voices

23andMe now claims
I have Sardinian genes.
I must admit, I cannot say
Exactly what this means.
But tell me please, might it explain
Why I like sardines?

My Unending Fascination With Placebos Continues

Usually when we think of placebos, we think of pills, but sham surgery has actually been studied a fair amount - it is used to create a control group for studies that try to determine how well real surgery works. That is, you are able to answer the question: does a sham version of this surgery work as well as a real version?

"A pill can provoke a placebo effect, but an injection produces an even stronger one. Cutting into someone appears to be more powerful still."

As for me, I'm hopin'
Not to get cut open.

Reviews of All Mixed Up NYC

We received a simply lovely review from Rachel Rocano at Drama Queens Reviews: Fresh Fruit Fest births “All Mixed Up”

"The script was both funny and poignant with messages evident and for the coffee shop discussion later."

"Ensemble cast was superb"
Ah, what a lovely blurb!
"Really enjoyable piece"
Please, go on, do not cease!

We also received a very thoughtful and enthusiastic review from Walter Donway:

"Romantic comedies are not tragedies, which this situation seemed to be becoming; they are entanglements of frustration, rage, maddening personalities, and even danger from which the characters somehow emerge and find love or some reconciliation with life. John Enright's brilliance is that the audience hardly could ever believe that this contemporary ambush of innocence in the equivalent of a PC firefight would end well."

On Facebook, my wife posted a photo of me with my hands clasped together in front of me, at a restaurant table, as if in prayer. It was taken on Sunday afternoon, before our last performance. Someone asked if I was saying grace, but I replied that I was praying to Dionysus for big audiences and good reviews.

For what I have received,
I would not dare complain,
God of theater.

I wrote with spirit cleaved,
But prizes after pain
Taste much sweeter.

T-rex Specs

Some scientists are now saying that T-rex couldn't really run fast. They're saying that the average human could outrun one of them - if only humans had coexisted with the mighty dinosaur carnivore.

Of course, it's all speculation. What we need is genetic reincarnation, along the lines of Jurassic Park.

Once we bring them back
We can bring them to the track.
I have to admit, just seeing that face
Would motivate my feet to race.

Jayden K. Smith

A Facebook friend sent me an urgent warning about Jayden K. Smith, a hacker who, if you let him become your Facebook friend, will take over your computer.

I'm not sure how that's supposed t work. And some apparently responsible reporters are saying that the warning is itself a hoax:

"There is no evidence of any account with the name Jayden K Smith going on sprees of adding users, and even if there were, they would not be able to hack into an account just by becoming a friend."

But I prefer to believe my friend.

Jayden K. Smith!
Not sure who he's with,
But all the best hackers
Have government backers.
I blame a cabal
From out of Nepal.

Closing Time

After three days of genial madness,
The show has closed. We had fun.
It all went well, but still some sadness
Comes when the fun is done.

We Opened

We had a good New York premiere
And one of the major factors
Which you can glimpse right here
Is a gaggle of gifted actors.

Program Panic

I had an adventure getting the theater programs designed on Fiverr.com. I wanted bi-fold 8.5 x 11, to slip inside the general "festival program".

I had 2 different people work on it. And both did something odd about the paper.

One designed it for 11 x 17. And the other designed for the right paper size but designed it to fold the long way, not the short way, even though the example of "how we did it last time" clearly folded the short way.

I'm sure I could have been more specific, blah, blah.

Anyway, got a working version, much better than I could have done, took it to a local printer, and the programs look great.

When time is so tight
Trial and error
Gives me a fright,
A slight touch of terror.

Plus Or Minus

Negative thinking
Can be powerful too
But it's not the kind
You hope comes true.

Tick Tock

My time machine,
Even at full power,
Only moves forward
At sixty minutes per hour.

Porcine Terpsichorean

If a pig
Had a gig
To dance a fine jig,
Would he snort
And cavort
In ecstatic transport?

Visit

Our grandson came to stay with us
But now he has gone back.
He made us chase around too much,
But now we feel his lack.

Scientists Investigate Why Monkeys Refuse To Talk

The Washington Post reports on scientific efforts to figure out why monkeys and apes don't make noises that sound like human speech. "Scientists figured there were two likely sticking points. Either the brain was not wired for speech in nonhuman primates, or their windpipes were shaped the wrong way."

Quick-skim spoiler alert: Seems like it's more of a brain issue.

Why can't monkeys generate speech?
Somehow the stuff stays out of their reach.

Parrots, of course, at least make the sounds,
But full understanding is out of bounds.

Problematic Pragmatic Truths

This "Russia hacked the election" meme seems to be dying down, since apparently they didn't, and since Trump doesn't seem to be leaning especially pro-Russian.

People just seemed to leap at this meme, which never had a lot of evidence. It recalls the pragmatic theory of truth, which is that truth is that which works, often understood to mean that truth is whatever works right now, tomorrow be damned.

The trouble is,
Tomorrow will come,
And made-up truths
Will look kind of dumb.

GOP

They promised to repeal and replace,
But never said with what.
They never thought they'd win that race!
Now egg goes splatter on the face.
They stutter: but, but, but...

Interview

Charming actors have things to say
About the New York production of my play.

Virtual Travels

The New Yorker has an article: An Agoraphobic Photographer’s Virtual Travels, on Google Street View

That's one way to enjoy the view.
And it's a whole lot cheaper, too.

Orwell Your Orwell

I heard David Ramsay Steele talking about his new book, Orwell Your Orwell: A Worldview on the Slab. I bought a copy, too, but have just read the preface so far.

This was a real labor of love for Ramsay Steele, who has been working on this book, off and on, for twenty years. It sounds like it's the most careful delineation of what Orwell actually thought and believed. Of course, his political views changed over time. At least once, in the case of whether it was a good idea to go to war with the NAZIs, they changed overnight.

Ramsay Steele thinks that Orwell ws never really controversial, as such, in the sense that Orwell's views generally mapped to views that were held by a large part of the British Left, at any given time. He's not saying that Orwell always followed the majority views of the British Left, but that his views were at least in line, at any given time, with some substantial minority.

He thinks Orwell's lasting legacy is his attack on totalitarianism, which had a real impact over time.

Orwell, himself, remained a socialist, but an anti-totalitarian. He thought the government should own everything, but that there should be freedom throughout the land. I know, somehow that never seems to work out compatibly.

Ramsay Steele aims to dissect
Orwell's worldly views
Which did indeed change to reflect
Evolving world news.

Celebrity Pinnacle

His tweets are immature,
But I fear they will endure.
It's part of his routine,
To act like Mr. Mean.
After all, why would he stop?
This role has got him to the top.

Strange Joyride

"Local police are searching for a thief who stole a street sweeper in Paterson, New Jersey early Wednesday morning, crashed it into several vehicles and fled the scene."

Apparently this sweeper
Wasn't a keeper.

Russian Philosophy

I finished Russian Philosophy by Copleston.

I sort of have 2 reasons for reading it.

My first reason is that I'm aiming to plow through Copleston's complete history of philosophy, of which this is one of the volumes, but one of the volumes which isn't included in the big monster-set I have of it. I think because it came later. Wikipedia lists the component volumes like this:

Volume 1: Greece and Rome
Volume 2: Augustine to Scotus
Volume 3: Ockham to Suarez
Volume 4: Descartes to Leibniz
Volume 5: Hobbes to Hume
Volume 6: Wolff to Kant
Volume 7: Fichte to Nietzsche
Volume 8: Bentham to Russell
Volume 9: Maine de Biran to Sartre
Volume 10: Russian Philosophy
Volume 11: Logical Positivism and Existentialism

In this scheme, I've only done 1 & 10.

But, hey,
That's two elevenths out of the way!

My second reason is that I'm planning to re-read Sciabarra's book, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. And I figured I should actually do a little homework so I had some context when Sciabarra starts talking about the philosophical traditions Rand would have been exposed to most in her formative years.

So that's why, having finished volume 1, I jumped ahead to 10. I have to admit, that I know enough of this stuff so that the Copleston material is mostly not really fresh to me. He's a good writer, so it's not actually boring, but it's a fairly fast read as philosophy goes. Thank goodness he writes so clearly!

Philosophical history
Doesn't need to be a mystery.

Lullaby

I sang the babe a silly sort of song,
A tune to soothe his agitated breast,
With syllables serene. It wasn't long
Before he shut his eyes in easeful rest.

An infant listens steadily to streams
Of language that he cannot comprehend.
It is a strange procedure, but it seems
To overcome the challenge in the end.

The human ear seeks out the human voice.
We dream it when in fact it is not there.
In solitude the hermit will rejoice
At whispering winds that visit his lone lair.

In silence we can hear our beating hearts.
But soon our craving for some lyrics starts.

Sort Of

It's a question that's
Always being debated:
Are domestic cats
Truly domesticated?

Words

Free speech may lead you to curse,
But censorship turns out worse.

More Than Anyone Wants To Know

Old notes I came across today, oddly tying in with yesterday's post about my father's birthday party:

I don't expect that many people will be interested in my development, particularly my early development, as a poet. But it interests me, so I am writing it down because I am curious about it myself, and believe I might get a better grip on it by committing it to words.

I grew up in a household where one of my role models periodically wrote humorous, clever, well-rhymed verse. This was my father. I would listen at the dinner table, reciting and sometimes discussing the technical mechanics of verse making. As I recall the form of the Limerick came under particular discussion. I listened closely.

My great Aunt Vera, on my mother's side, was also a writer of verses. As I recall hers ranged more toward the heartfelt and sentimental. So I thought of poetry writing as a noteworthy activity that some normal people engaged in.

I mentioned that I listened closely to my father's thoughts on versification, so perhaps this is a good place to insert some mention of the fact that I had trouble talking as a young child, a trouble that was rooted, at least in part, in having trouble distinguishing some routine English phonemes. I can remember not being able, for instance, to distinguish the sound of This from Dis. This was not because everyone around me said "dis" although perhaps some did. Here's another, different example of my problem. I could not pronounce the word YES properly. I had some problem with the Y and some problem with the S as well. I remember it as extremely frustrating and embarrassing. As the years wore on, I mastered these phonemes, but at a self conscious level that involved really listening to how people spoke.

I think this made me more focused on the sound of words at a conscious level than most kids usually are. In later grade school I was actually better at phonetic analysis than my peers. I imagine it was a form of overcompensation for whatever was "off" in my original linguistic capabilities. I suspect that this overcompensation is one of the factors that drove me to writing and to poetry in particular.

The first poems I remember writing was a fourth grade school assignment. Our teacher wrote a single line on the blackboard: Do you like the sun?

We were supposed to take that as a starting line and write a poem.

Do you like the sun
And the stars that it passes?
....
And its fiery hot gases?

That's all I remember - 3 lines from the first quatrain. It went on for several quatrains more, exploring various facets of the solar system.

Two of us were chose for special acclaim by the teacher. The other student had taken a totally different approach.

Do you like the sun
Or do you like the moon?

He went on to compare the virtues of day and night.

This contrast of approaches - equally valid interpretations of the first line - struck me profoundly. I began to glimpse how a simple line of poetry can go off in very different directions. It's hard to say why this was experienced as such an epiphany, but it was.

The next poem I remember is one I wrote in my freshman year of high school. It was written to make fun of our elderly theology teacher, Father Lauer. It was written for the amusement of my classmates and included a lot of in-joke references to some of the peculiarities of his teachings. I recall the first quatrain.

God is syllogism.
Religion's diagrams.
Support the Lauer schism.
Pray in traffic jams.

I also remember the last 2 lines;

Just cheat, cheat, cheat,cheat, cheat
And you will get an A.

I wouldn't expect that to mean anything to anyone now, but it was wildly popular with my classmates, one of whom reproduced the poem and spread it around. It did fall into the hands of at least one other teacher who gave us a talking to, and who learned in the process that I was the satirist.

That same year, my freshman year in high school, I began looking seriously at modern, free verse poetry for the first time and puzzling over what it was about, and in particular puzzling over what made it different than prose. Were they really poems at all? I asked. One poem baffled me even more, Grasshopper by e.e. cummings, which just seemed to involve the letters of the word GRASSHOPPER arranged around the page in unpronounceable configurations that visually suggested a grasshopper hopping around. Our English teacher told us something like it was really a poem but we weren't ready to understand it. This bothered me no end.

I recall being puzzled also by our high school literary magazine, which was loaded with free-verse stream-of-consciousness stuff.

I studied the content of these poems, and wrote a poem on their model. It was a poem about drifting of to sleep, and I wrote it in a breathless style of successive drifting thoughts. It was not accepted for publication, but I heard later that the editors had wondered whether it was a parody. I suppose, in retrospect, they might have thought my "falling asleep" theme was a commentary on my level of interest in their poetry.

I think it was that summer that I read the book that really got me interested in poetic analysis. This book was The Design Of Poetry, which I found at the public library. I found the book riveting. The author did line by line analysis of a variety of poems. Specifically, I recall Because I Could Not Stop For Death, by Emily Dickinson, Ozymandias, by Shelley, and that poem about eating plums by William Carlos Williams.

The author was lined up, more or less, with the New Criticism school of interpretation, so he was quite keen on finding ironies and ambiguities in the text. I was quite taken with the analysis, particularly with the very close reading and very close analysis of metaphor and simile. It really was one of those books that changed my life.

The author had a theory about what made something poetry, something like writing designed for no purpose but its own contemplation. This easily included free verse. Later I decided it was an inadequate, over-inclusive definition, but for now it sufficed. I also started reading more poetry as an independent habit. I recall being most struck by 2 poets: Emily Dickinson, and Kenneth Patchen. Among moderns, I was partial to the Beat poets: Patchen, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Corso. As an individual poet, I was impressed with Lenore Kandel, who published a single book of poems. Among classics, aside from Dickinson, I liked Blake for his short lyrics.

The Beats appealed to me in part because their meaning was manifest and strongly emotional.

I began writing free verse poems, continued writing rhymed poems, and also wrote some poems that combined the 2 modes.

By my Junior year, I was on the high school literary magazine, which had a new faculty advisor, a young Jesuit who was a big fan of Dylan Thomas. He did not care for free verse, said it didn't sound like anything in particular. I argued the other side of this case, but didn't feel I had that great a case, and wondered if I was wrong.

This brings me, roughly, to the development of my interest in Ayn Rand's philosophy. This had an immediate effect on my poetry writing in several ways.

Stylistically, the element of her thought that had the biggest effect was her withering analysis of the modernist revolution in art. She actually had only a few passing remarks about poetry. But I began to think that maybe free verse was in a class with non-representational painting and plotless novels. So I channeled my efforts into verse with more form to it.

A second stylistic impact came from her emphasis on clarity. I had been taught that good poetry was ambiguous. Now I was working with the idea that good poetry should be clear.

Shortly before getting really interested in Rand, I had been started on a study of William Butler Yeats. I was very impressed and he came to be another influential favorite for me.

----------------

This brings us to the start of my high school senior year.
It's already too much stuff, I fear,
But fortunately, it does end here.

Ninety

My father turned 90 yesterday. We had a big party today. His cake had just one candle. I read this poem. At his law firm, when there was a ceremonial event calling for the writing of humorous verse, they always asked him to write a "limerick" for the occasion. Yes, that's how this talent came to me.

In the firm where he once practiced law
It is clear that his partners all saw
That this man could coerce
English words into verse
With a humor that left them in awe.

I learned lots of things while in school
But none quite so well as the rule
That the third and fourth line
In a limerick's design
Must be short, or you sound like a fool.

He supported us all with his earning
And tried to pass on his vast learning,
So let's give a cheer
To this great dad, right here
Today while his candle is burning.

Art of Acting

It is a magic moment. Actors speak,
And what were merely words upon a page,
Bare characters that lay there, listless, weak,
Leap forth with sudden strength upon the stage.

Front Yard

Mama and baby bunny
Under the cherry tree.
When I got closer - it's funny -
They ran away from me.

No Blue For You

Crowd of clouds.

NYC

Flew into NYC around 4pm, got to a 5pm meet-and-greet read-through of my play, All Mixed Up, which is playing at the Fresh Fruit Festival July 14-16th. I'm currently booked on 2 delayed flights out of LaGuardia and I'm taking whichever leaves first.

Despite the rigors of travel
I have not yet begun to unravel.

Portrait in Yellow

Patiently waiting for a walk.
She'd tell me so if she could talk.

Format Follies

I've been puzzling over an invoice I got in an email, with an invoice date of 3/6/2017 and a due date of 10/6/2017.

Why, in June, would a company send me an invoice dated March, that isn't owed until October?

Figured it out today, when I got an overdue notice. It's obvious if you don't live in the U.S., I suppose. Those are June dates - it's that foreign date format!

I was taken in, I fear
by the dreaded day/month/year!

Old Phrase

Why does the Department of the Interior
Mostly deal with stuff that's out of doors?
I ponder but my brain is growing wearier.
It's a mystery that the media ignores!

Parodying T. S. Eliot

I shall wear red and white striped trousers
And walk along the beach.
I have heard the journalists calling each to each:
"Comey scanned his browsers
And has enough to impeach!"
But after testimony,
That promise seems to be phony.
The story ends with a whimper, not a screech.

- from the Trump Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Translation

One dog word for humans
Means "wise monkey"
But another one translates
As "poop pick up flunky".

The McKinley Mansion, As We Called It

My father's house is empty. He has moved into a retirement village place, and is selling the house. Family members took a lot of stuff from the house, a big 3-story Victorian. Then we had an estate sale. Then we had people fill up a dumpster. And a second dumpster is on order. But, right now, the house is empty. All the furniture, all the stuff, gone. It reminds me, very much, of the first time I saw the house, when we were moving in, in 1966.

My father's house is empty - vacant halls
Echoing with my mother's vanished calls

Back to New York

My play, All Mixed Up, which ran in Fall 2016 in Chicago, is set to be included in the Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC in July 2017.

It's still a bit in flux, but I signed and mailed the contract today.
So I guess once again I'm on my way
To Gotham to put on a play.

Playwright Reception

This charming theater festival in Heartland had a playwright reception, which gave the six attending playwrights a chance to interact a bit with the evening's audience. That was new for me. Playwrights, as a group, aren't the most sociable people. Writers tend to be introverts - extroverts aren't so interested in sitting alone and making up stuff in their heads.

A frequent audience question is where do you get your ideas?

I wish I knew
The how and where
But some arrive
From thin air.

That can't be true
But how in fact
They really do...
Is inexact.

Escape from New York

I attended a play festival in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois last night, basically because I had a ten-minute play in the festival.

I was struck by the high percentage of people there who had lived in Queens.

Me, of course. I lived in Kew Gardens for a while in the seventies. An audience member near me, the mother of another playwright, was originally from Jackson Heights, although she now lives in the North Carolina. And Vicky Snyder, an actress in my play, was originally from Jackson Heights, although she now lives in the Bloomington-Normal area.

So, basically, just overhearing things, I found 2 other former Queens residents. Is it just a quirky coincidence?

It occurred to me that New York is a very strong theater town, and that early habits die hard, so that maybe you can expect to find ex-New Yorkers in disproportionate concentrations in the world of American small-city theater.

It occurred to me that people flee New York. People swarm in there, people swarm out there - there's a lot of churn.

Lots of people from Queens.
I'm not sure what it means.
You can give my theories a glance
But probably it's just chance.

Spooky Sound

My Labrador lets out a howl
Whenever a siren goes by.
It's one long continuous vowel,
Sung out with the throat lifted high.

128 Miles

Drove to Normal, Illinois.
Are you a fan of flat?
I'll tell you, boy oh boy,
We've got a lot of that.

Sign of the Times

Apparently the sign painters did half the job, and took a break. Reportedly they played this same prank 20 years ago.

Really, it's pointless fuss,
But next time start with SUSS.